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According to reports, at least 35 people are dead while six are seriously injured in the northern Philippines after a bus plunged into a 100 meter deep ravine. The accident occurred early Wednesday near the city of Baguio, 200 kilometres north of the capital Manila. The accident happened when the brakes on the vehicle failed and it rolled down a hill into a ditch. Officials say the death toll may increase. There were a total of 47 passengers on board. The bus conductor, John Patrick Flores, survived the accident with only minor injuries by

US columnist and grammarian James J. Kilpatrick has died aged 89. Marianne Means, Kilpatrick’s wife, said that he died on Sunday evening. At the time of his death he was being treated for congestive heart failure. After starting his career writing about racial issues in the south, Kilpatrick became one of the nation’s best known Conservative columnists. His column, “A Conservative View”, was published in over one hundred newspapers across the United States. As well as voicing his opinions in newspapers, Kilpatrick was 60 Minutes Conservat

Robert Wilson, the bassist for funk group The Gap Band, has died at the age of 53. Wilson’s death was announced by his manager and publicist, Don Jackson. He died in Los Angeles on Sunday night. The cause of death was announced as a massive heart attack. Born in Tulsa, Wilson formed funk and R&B group The Greenwood, Archer and Pine Street band with his brothers, Charlie and Ronnie. They later shortened the name to The Gap Band to make it stand out on gig posters. The group had reached success by the time Wilson was 14. Hits by the brothers

China's economy surpassed Japan's during the second quarter of 2010, and now is the second largest world economic power. China's economy already is larger than Japan's in the fourth quarter of most years, and many expect that the world's most populous country will soon cement its place as the world's second largest economy all year round. From April to June of this year, China's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was USD 1.337 trillion, bigger than the Japanese GDP at USD 1.288 trillion. But Japan's GDP still remains larger than the Chinese one in t

NASCAR Sprint Cup Series driver Kevin Harvick won his third race of the season after leading sixty laps on Sunday during the 2010 Carfax 400 race at Michigan International Speedway in Brooklyn, Michigan. The race result left Harvick leading the Driver's Championship with 3,400 points, and gave him a position in the Chase for the Sprint Cup. It was his fourteenth career victory in the US's leading professional stock car series. His previous victory came during the 2010 Coke Zero 400. Denny Hamlin finished in the second position, ahead of Carl

Plastic surgeon to the stars Dr. Frank Ryan has died in a car accident at age 50. It is reported that the Jeep Ryan was driving crashed over the side of the Pacific Coast Highway and landed on rocks. Lifeguards were first on the scene and unsuccessfully tried to rescue Ryan. It is thought that no other vehicle was involved in the incident. Dr. Ryan, a celebrity in his own right, performed plastic surgery on several stars including Janice Dickinson, Gene Simmons, Shauna Sand and Adrianne Curry. He appeared on several television shows and bec

Hong Kong 'tutor king' Karson Oten Fan Karno, known to the city by the pseudonym of 'K. OTen', applied for bankruptcy following a failed appeal. He was sued by the tutorial schools Modern Education and King's Glory Education Centre for breach of contract and was sued for $8.87 million and $26 million respectively. Karno is a well-known but controversial English tutor who taught under Modern Education and King's Glory who claimed to have 9,000 students at the peak of his career. In his notes he used words which some parents considered coarse, a

A London Underground engineering train ran away and travelled four miles on the Underground's Northern Line early on Friday morning, resulting in part of the Northern Line, which carries 500,000 passengers daily, being closed for much of the day. The runaway train apparently had an engineering defect. The London Underground, also known as the Tube, reported that the engineering train had been working on the High Barnet branch of the Northern Line when it broke down at 5.25 a.m. BST (0425 UTC). It was attached to an out-of-service passenger tra

US president Barack Obama has endorsed permitting a mosque to be built a few blocks away from the site where Al Qaeda terrorists intentionally crashed two planes into the World Trade Center towers in 2001, otherwise known as 'Ground Zero'. The site is located in New York City. Obama, who stated his endorsement at an annual dinner celebrating the Islamic holiday of Ramadan, said, "As a citizen, and as president, I believe that Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as everyone else in this country. That includes the right to bui

Janaki Venkataraman, former first lady of India and widow of former president Ramaswamy Venkataraman, died at 89 Saturday, around around 4:30 p.m. local time (11:00 UTC). Her family members said she was admitted to Sir Ganga Ram Hospital in New Dehli on August 10, 2010 with complaints of chest infection. Venkataraman was first lady from 1987 to 1992. She was widowed in January 2009 when Ramaswamy died at 98. Pratibha Patil, current president of India, paid tribute to Venkataraman in a letter to Padma Venkataraman, Janaki Venkataraman's dau

A global supply manager for Apple Inc. was arrested Friday in California and indicted for wire fraud and money laundering, after accepting over US$1 million in kickbacks. The manager, 37-year-old Paul Shin Devine, used a system of international bank accounts and a front organization in order to receive the payments, reported the San Jose Mercury News. Andrew Ang, of Singapore, was also named in the indictment. Ang is accused of receiving confidential data, as well as accepting a portion of the kickbacks paid to Devine. Devine, who lives in Su

On Sunday, South Korean President Lee Myung-bak proposed a tax to begin to save for the cost of reunifying the Korean peninsula, despite the possibility of worsening relations with North Korea in the process. Lee expressed optimism about reunification while maintaining demands that North Korea abandon its nuclear arms ambitions. In a speech commemorating the 65th anniversary of the Korean liberation from Japanese rule, Lee stated he "believe[s] that the time has come to start discussing realistic policies to prepare for that day [of reunificat